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Entry 141 of 240War

Timur the Conqueror

1370–1405 CE/Central Asia/Timurid Empire
Today Central Asia (capital Samarkand, modern Uzbekistan)Span Timurid Empire · 1370–1507 CE

From Samarkand, the Turco-Mongol warlord Timur — known in the West as Tamerlane — carved out the last great steppe empire through campaigns that left towers of skulls outside the cities that defied him, while making his capital a jewel of art and architecture. His empire fractured after his death, but his defeat of the Ottoman sultan bought Christian Europe several decades of reprieve.

◆ Worth knowingTimur's campaigns may have killed as many as 17 million people — around 5% of the world at the time — yet he turned Samarkand into a wonder of learning, and his great-great-great-grandson founded India's Mughal Empire.
◆ The mechanismMilitary-technological disruption

A weapon or tactic upends the prevailing balance of power and renders an old defensive or offensive order obsolete.

Also: Imperial overstretch · Demographic shock & recovery

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